


there's a light that you gave me

by hooksandheroics



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Clint has Natasha Feelz, Drowning, F/M, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Natasha is Alive Bitches, Post-Canon Fix-It, Some light angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-08
Updated: 2019-06-08
Packaged: 2020-04-22 23:49:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19139332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hooksandheroics/pseuds/hooksandheroics
Summary: Natasha would be proud of his last thoughts.





	there's a light that you gave me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [livbishops](https://archiveofourown.org/users/livbishops/gifts).



> some doofuses on twitter were talking about clint diving into every body of water trying to get nat back. i just had to make it serious.
> 
> (ignored LOTS of canon here lmao. if you read 'til the end, you'd know which canon *cough* farm fam *cough* i ignored.)

When Clint dreams, he doesn’t dream about purple skies or cliffs or how weirdly close moons looked in planets obscure to common human knowledge.

There’s a safehouse in Prague just south from St. Vitus, walking distance from an antique jewelry shop that can only be accessed through a hole in a literal wall. It used to be a whole school until it burned down in the early 1900s. The wall separating the jewelry shop from the rest of Prague stood strong and indestructible for a millennium and change, and it has become an irreplaceable icon in the community that when a family decided to start a business in the land around it, they _had_ to include the wall.

Natasha loved the history of that place. She even studied the language just to hear it from the locals, but Clint’s not surprised at all. There is a certain beauty to the way she moves around a place to gather everything she could, not to weaponize the knowledge, but _just because_. They both realized this as tourist mentality, something they could not afford to indulge, but still did. Because it’s Prague. Because most people want to travel and they could, so they did shit normal people would do because it’s trivial and human.

There’s not much humanity to what they do so they try to find it in weird hole-in-the-wall places and coffee shops. (Coffee shops are _his_ thing, if Nat’s are weird places the travel guides don’t ever mention.)

It’s in a weird hole-in-the-wall coffee shop in Prague, a fusion of their human interests, that she told him about how she wants to die.

Clint tried to swallow the unpleasant feeling in his throat because even the thought – the mere seedling of a thought will always make him panicky. All the danger in the world and he only panics when Natasha so much as goes somewhere his arrows cannot reach.

“Somewhere with a view,” she told him over a cup of tea. “Wouldn’t it be nice to have beauty as your last thought?”

“I would rather you not have a last thought yet,” Clint replied honestly. Thing is: she is so comfortable with death because she has to be, if she wants to survive. But Clint is _not_ because that’s how he survives. And he’s read enough novels to know what foreshadowing looks like – but that’s not how it works in real life, right? There’s no author. No one to blame. Right?

Clint dreams about that day in Prague like it haunts him that he didn’t see it coming from miles and miles away, from years and years ago.

But this – this is not dreaming.

Somewhere in Alaska, in some undiscovered, freezing lake, Clint Barton is drowning.

Drowning and thinking about last thoughts and the swirl of cream in his coffee. Thinking about the brand of cologne that seemed to have followed the two of them around the streets surrounding the church and how much he misses _her_.

Well, as far as last thoughts go, Prague was a beautiful place. Natasha would be proud.

Wanda’s okay. He’s got Sam and Scott.

Scott would understand how to take care of her, he has a daughter. Whereas Clint just winged it the moment he met her. He didn’t know a single thing about taking care of a teenager who’s just lost the only family she had, but he’d like to think he managed pretty well over the years.

Sam, on the other hand. He cares for everybody now.

Besides, and as Wanda would always tell him, she’s an adult now. The other day, she snuck out to meet someone from a dating app, and Clint could not have been prouder and more terrified. She’s the closest thing he has for a daughter and when he saw the recording of her levitating herself over the tall front gates, he felt like he was losing her.

Guess that’s how it feels to be a father.

That thought makes him laugh, which is a bad decision because he’s drowning and laughing decreases his chances of survival.

Not that he’s ever getting out of this alive – not when his limbs are too heavy to move. Nobody would come looking for him because this wasn’t even a sanctioned mission, really. It was more an ocular of a terrain that could still be housing HYDRA members.

Clint just took a bullet to the stomach and fell into a freezing lake.

Natasha would call that stupid.

But ever since she died, he’s been making stupider and stupider decisions every passing moment. The other day, he put salt in his coffee instead and drank it straight because what’s been done is done. It wouldn’t be long until he runs out of luck. Today, apparently, is the day he does.

Sam would be so pissed.

 _Fight it_ , he said. _We’re here because of her. You think she would want you to waste your life away after everything she did just to save it?_

And man, that hurt. Clint has never wanted to punch Sam in his perfect face until that little statement at four in the goddamn morning in their communal kitchen some few weeks ago. There was nothing to hear in the distance – not cicadas or birds or even just the occasional engine roar of vehicles for people with somewhere to be. That’s why when he cussed at Sam, it floated between them like a lovely display of spectacular pain.

 _Sorry_ , Clint had murmured, finished his salty coffee, and left the Captain mulling over that rare moment of vulnerability in the kitchen.

What was it about dying? Something about your whole life flashing by your eyes as you take your final breath? Well, there’s no final breath to take here. Just a lungful of freezing cold water.

It hurts, but it also doesn’t.

*

If this is the afterlife… man, it could really be, because Natasha looks as beautiful as the day he lost her. Hanging by that cliff, she looked tranquil and a little bit annoyed. Her hair had started losing the bleached tips and he was grateful for it.

Natasha here. She’s back to red, she looks tranquil, and she also looks annoyed. Her hair’s a little wet, she’s shivering, and they’re in a cave. So of course, he says something dumb.

“Man, I’m so glad to die.” Because he is, and he’s missed her so much that if dying will bring him to her, he will never want to live ever again. He still feels heavy and cold, he’s still a little dizzy and disoriented, but Natasha is so clear in his vision that she looks like she’s glowing.

Maybe she is.

“Idiot. You’re not dead.”

“Wha…?”

“What kind of idiot takes a level 5 mission without back-up?” She’s using SHIELD levels. What is happening right now? “Only you, Barton.”

“I’m not dead?” he asks. Or he thinks he does, but it must have sounded like a weird stuttering remix of the words.

She shakes her head and adjusts the blanket around her shoulders, reminiscent of cold nights in stakeouts with no heating. Just… just the two of them and the heat between them.

By god, he missed her and he wants to hold her so bad, but his chest is caving in with the weight of the words that he regretted never saying to her because she – she –

“You died,” he whispers, small and broken, and he feels tears pricking at the back of his eyes. She did. She _died_ and he mourned and – if she’s not dead, then where has she been?

“I guess I did.” She scoots closer and Clint is assaulted by the sight of her. How does she look the same when it’s been two years since he – since she –

She reaches out a hand and touches his cheek, reverent and gentle, and his breath freezes in his lungs and holds there. She’s real. He can feel her against his skin and inhale her scent.

“I’m sure you have a lot of questions,” she says, leaning over to lay her forehead against his, and by god, his throat closes up. He’s dreamt about doing this again, and in his dreams, he always makes sure to memorize the way she looked. His eyes fall shut and he lets out a shuddering breath in relief because this time, he doesn’t have to. “I do, too. But when I woke up, I just knew I had to find you.”

“How?”

“I don’t know, Clint.”

“You found me, what – how did you find me?”

“I don’t know.”

 _Fuck_ , is it bad that he doesn’t even really care anymore? That all he cares about is that she’s back?

She presses a kiss to his forehead. “I think… I think I have theories.”

That brings a laugh out of Clint. Of course, she does. His Natasha, with the never-ending questions, with the brain that never shuts up. That’s her.

“Yeah,” he murmurs, already falling asleep again. “Can you tell me when we get back home?”

“Rest,” she orders, voice soft against his skin. When she makes to pull away, a sudden fear grips his heart and he reaches out in panic.

It takes him a while to get the words out, but she waits patiently, eyes steady and fearless. “Can you – I want to – please stay?”

She settles against his back when he turns, the floor of the cave pricking him, but fuck it. He doesn’t care.

When a universe of questions opened up the moment she touched him, the moment his brain registered her realness, was the same moment he stopped giving a fuck about anything else. She understands. When she wraps an arm around his middle and presses against him and lets out a sigh, he knows she does.

When they get back home, she’s going to lay her theories out, and he’s going to tell her all about his last thoughts.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! comments and kudoses are love. :)


End file.
